Tour de Fleece Detour

The early part of my Tour de Fleece is making a detour through Indiana this year.  One of my challenge projects is spinning some yarn for a friend, from one of her sheep. Blaze is a Shropshire/Border Leicester cross and this is definitely a Sara fleece.  I like wool that feels like wool.  Not scratchy by any means, but not cottony or too silky either.

The light gray color is her most recent growth (nearest her skin) and the red, sunbleached tips are what had been on her the longest.  Unfortunately this beautiful fleece has a fiber break, or a weak spot, about 2/3 of the way up the growth.  This is fairly common with ewes raising lambs.  The weak spot is in the red area.  The staple length is quite long though and I pulled out a big chunk of what I thought was the best and gave it a wash.

My plan was to comb off the ends and see if what was left was still a good spinnable length.

I lashed on small groups of locks by the strong clipped (as opposed to the tips) end.

Combed the fiber from one comb to the other.

This is what came off.

I did two passes with the combs (one to comb it off the stationary comb and one to comb it back on) and then pulled out a long thick "strand".  I do this by gently pulling from the very end, pull, pull, pull, not letting the "strand" break apart.  This is called combed top.

I wrap it around my hand and then tuck in the end and it's ready to spin.

I started with 8.8 ounces of raw wool.  After washing (which removed oil and dirt) it was 6.4 ounces.  After combing (which removed broken ends) I have 3.6 ounces left to spin.  I started spinning it last night and we are good to go :-).

The following is a short video of the yarn being spun.  I also show how I join the next "bird nest" of combed top.  

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A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady)

I'll post updates on IG/FB as I go and I'll share a picture of the finished yarn here.  Don't let me forget!